


Three Times Peggy Carter Met the Winter Soldier and One Time She Was the Winter Soldier

by imadra_blue



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 3 Things, Action, Alternate Universe, Canon - Movie, Drama, Gen, One Shot, POV Female Character, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-06 22:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1875126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadra_blue/pseuds/imadra_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Across the multiverse, Peggy Carter proves a lightning rod for the Winter Soldier, be she a superheroine, a target, a double agent, or an assassin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times Peggy Carter Met the Winter Soldier and One Time She Was the Winter Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> Written on request for h7dra on Tumblr, who requested "a peggy winter soldier au." So I wrote four of them.

1.

"He's a ghost."

Natasha's words still rang in Peggy's head, though Natasha had long hidden somewhere out of Peggy's view. Peggy trusted the girl to know what she was doing. Peggy crouched behind smoking vehicles, looking for her opponent. The Winter Soldier stomped through the streets, somewhere, obscured by the dust that had flown up from the explosions he'd set, no doubt looking for her. Peggy hadn't fought a man like this since she'd woken up from her frozen sleep—not unless she'd counted all the aliens she'd fought. The last man she fought with power like her own was Johann Schmidt, his twisted face red and horrible, reminding her of all the failures of Erskine's program. She thought of poor sweet Steven Rogers trapped in a living coma after his injection. He should have made it, but the serum wasn't ready yet. And when it was, only Peggy had been left to take it. But Steve was long dead by now, and Peggy soon would be if she didn't figure out how to get the drop on this super-powered ghost.

Following the sounds of civilian screaming and powerful gunshot, Peggy leapt into the fray. In the distance, Natasha buckled to her knees, clutching her shoulder. The Winter Soldier, his ragged blond hair in his face, still pointed his gun at her. Peggy dashed forward as fast as she could and aimed a punch at him. But he was too fast and wheeled around. She managed to get in under his gunfire, but he slammed a fist into her shield, creating a resounding gong from the force of the blow. Her arms ached, but she ignored it. She snapped her shield up and slammed it into the bottom of the Winter Soldier's chin. His mask flew off, and when he looked back at her, she recognized him immediately.

"Steve?" she whispered.

"Who's Steve?" he asked, his tone flat, his blue eyes dull.

"A dead man," she choked out, and raised her shield to block the hail of Steven Rogers's bullets.

…

2.

A gunshot cracked out through the night, and warm blood splattered over Peggy's white anniversary dress. James slumped forward without a sound. The car skidded down the icy road sideways, a roller coaster sailing off its tracks. She wanted to scream, but she bit back the sound and grabbed the wheel, yanking the car away from the steep drop off the side of the mountain road. Her hands slipped on James's blood, the car fishtailed, and the world spun. Peggy lost all track of up and down. The car finally crashed into a ditch, rocking her violently in her seatbelt, but she rolled with the impact, just as she always had.

She realized her car was sitting on its trunk, leaving her vertical. James had fallen back in the seat. The side of his head had opened up like a bloody watermelon. Choking back tears, she turned from the sight and opened the door. She dropped out into the snow-covered brambles in the ditch she found herself in. She heard heavy footsteps on the road above her and ran towards the woods. Her right leg hurt like the Devil himself had dug his claws into it, but pain wasn't going to stop her. She'd always known they'd come after her. She'd just prayed they wouldn't hurt her family. With no small amount of guilt, she reflected it was better they took her husband than her children. After Steve, losing the man she'd married didn't sting half as bad, but then, she'd not loved him half as much. But the children, she'd loved the children more than anything. She thought of them back at home, no doubt huddled together watching TV and eating the cookies she'd made for them, and she wondered if they'd sent someone there, too. Her heart stopped beating for a moment at the thought, but she pushed it away. She couldn't help them if she was going to let fear consume her.

Gunfire thundered out into the night. Right before the bullets hit, she sensed them. She'd been in S.H.I.E.L.D. so long that it felt like she had a sixth sense about being shot. She dove behind a large tree, hearing the wood splinter as the bullets pounded the other side. She heard a metallic catch and then a soft thump in the snow. The weapon had misfired. Peggy smiled and reached for her gun, only to wince and hiss. A bloody wound gaped where her thigh holster should be.

The attacker suddenly grabbed her from behind the tree and held her up by her throat. He was fast, quiet, beyond human. Peggy beat on his arm, but she only bruised her flesh on metal. Her lungs burned as she gasped for air, but she fought off the encroaching blackness and scratched at the man's masked face. The mask fell off. The man leaned his head back, brown hair sliding back to reveal a familiarly handsome face.

"Bucky," she gasped out, and kicked him in the balls.

No matter what his arm was made of, Bucky was still a man. He dropped her and reeled back, grunting. Peggy collapsed in a heap on the snow, her wounded thigh screaming in pain. She stared at Bucky as he turned to face her. It was definitely him. He hadn't aged a day in twenty years.

"Bucky," she wheezed. "Bucky, how are you alive? Why are you doing this?"

Bucky froze and blinked at her, his brows drawing together. "Who the hell is Bucky?"

…

3.

"It's from him. It all came from him," Alexander Pierce whispered into her ear, his fingers still wrapped around the back of her neck.

Peggy gasped for air as she stared at Bucky Barnes. Impossibly alive Bucky, lying on a strange chair, a sparking metal ring above his head. The technicians removed a bit from his mouth. Tears had covered his face, though he made no sound. He just lay there, in his chair, breathing heavily, head rolling about like a baby. Peggy could imagine what it was like to be him. Until today, she'd spent the last few years in the same mnemonic fog, unable to discern reality. But thanks to whatever Pierce had refined from Bucky's blood, Peggy could recall everything clearly now. When she lifted her hands, the liver spots had faded, and her wrinkles were slowly disappearing. She was growing younger, stronger, every passing minute.

"I don't want any part of this," she whispered, balling her hands into fists. She hadn't been able to bend her fingers like that in years thanks to arthritis. Old age had been a terrible fate, trapping her in a prison of inflamed flesh as it emptied her mind of everything she held dear.

Pierce tilted his head and smiled. "You're already part of it, Peggy. You've been part of it for years. Right under your nose, HYDRA grew within S.H.I.E.L.D. and now we're about to take control. We're your friends, your co-workers, your protégés. You were my supervising officer, my trainer. I will always be grateful to you. Which is why I want you to join us. But if you don't want it, the serum will soon fade, and you'll go back to being the decrepit, addled old biddy you were only an hour ago."

Peggy covered her mouth, choking back bile. Bucky's gaze fell on her, but there was no recognition. He'd been Steve's dearest friend, Steve's most loyal companion. When he'd died, part of Steve had died, too. But he was alive now, like Steve. Unlike Steve, he was in chains, invisible chains that bound him to HYDRA's will. He moaned slightly, metal fingers twitching.

"So should I let the serum run out?" Pierce asked. "Or will you help us take S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

She couldn't go back to her flesh prison. She could handle death, she could handle old age, she could handle pain, but she couldn't handle forgetting. She couldn't let herself slip away. The yawning void that lurked at the back of her mind, still threatening to consume the memories it had only just begrudgingly returned, terrified her beyond words. She couldn't accomplish anything if she fell back into it.

"What about Steve?"

Pierce rubbed her neck suggestively, making her skin crawl. When he smiled, his blue eyes were as clear as ever, and Peggy wondered how she'd never noticed what a monster he was until now. "We won't need to kill Captain America. I have greater things in mind for him, if you can help us."

"And what of Bucky?" she whispered. Bucky's gaze darted away at the sound of his own name. He was a ghost of his former self. The body was present, but the mind gone.

"Well, we can't have everything, can we? But never mind him. He's a means to your end. Will you help us?"

Peggy licked her lips. They weren't so dry as they'd been before. She could feel vigor returning to her being. Things she'd taken for granted when she was young. "Yes," she said, staring into Pierce's startlingly blue eyes.

God help her, but she would. At least until the point when she could drive a high heel through Alexander Pierce's eye socket.

…

+1.

Her mission kept talking, pleading with her. She stumbled after him, ignoring her broken ribs, determined to complete the mission. She had to. There was nothing else but the mission. It was all she knew, all she could think of, the echoing need to end Captain America's life. It didn't matter that he'd moved the fallen girder and saved her life. She had to end him. That was the purpose of her existence.

"Peggy, listen to me," Captain America croaked at her. Around them, the airship continued to rain down around them in fiery pieces. Captain America's face was broken and bloody from where she'd hit him. "You're Peggy Carter. You were an S.S.R. agent. HYDRA took you right before the war ended, right after I crashed landed in the arctic."

"Shut up," she snapped, and hit him again. He didn't fight back anymore, as he had earlier, but then, he'd been trying to save people. Did he not care about himself?

Captain America gasped for air. "You're Peggy Carter. You saved Bucky's life. But they took you. Did things to you. This isn't you, Peggy. You're a good person. My best girl."

Something about his words gave her pause. She punched him again. His body shuddered beneath her—or perhaps it was just the airship's structural failure. Everything about this man disarmed her, left her confused. He was her mission, but he knew her. How could he know her? She was only the person who carried out the missions. There was nothing to know.

"When I asked you out to dance—" Steve spat up blood and smiled with swollen lips. "—this wasn't what I had in mind."

She knew those words. She could see herself sitting by a radio, lipstick as bright and red as Captain America's blood, listening to him ask her to dance and knowing he'd never return. The moorings finally gave out, dumping them into the water below. She should have immediately swum for shore, as broken as her body was, but first, she grabbed Captain America and pulled him to safety. She wasn't entirely sure why, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Something he would do.


End file.
